I've just spent the afternoon looking through old high school photographs and yearbooks....and remembering. Many things made me laugh, while others moved me to tears. At times my memory failed me as I read some of the words written by friends and classmates; things that must have been a funny inside joke at the time but have been forgotten through the years. However, the names and faces all came rushing back with the force of a freight train moving powerfully down its track. It was 1980 again and I had stepped back in time where everything was frozen in place.....and we were still young.It is vivid. Young boys with long hair and ornery smiles who teased us in the hallways, stood beside us in prom pictures and made our hearts sing. Sweet, innocent girls filling the school with laughter, and being carefree and silly in a time when fashion and make-up was not a big deal. We wore flannel shirts and baseball jerseys, ski jackets and overalls. Fancy dresses had long eyelet sleeves and a decorated gymnasium was the backdrop for our proms.
There were music contests and band concerts, cheering at games until we were hoarse, field trips and favorite teachers, roaming the hallways between classes and making memories too numerous to count.
Somewhere between then and now, we all grew up. We stepped out of the time capsule that kept us in perpetual youth and turned into wives and husbands, parents...adults. A season, indeed, for everything.
Dear schoolmates, when I think of you I see you at seventeen with the world in the palm of your hand and your future awaiting. Your voices still echo down the hallways of my mind and its sound fills my heart. I feel the light and energy of your youth and I, too, am there once again. Though our time together has come and gone, the memories remain. You touched my life and changed it forever and perhaps one day our paths will cross again.
So, to the class of 1980 and to those who shared our road, you will always travel with me; making me smile, making me cry and making me remember when the world was still brand new.
Thanks for the memories.
2 comments:
This was certainly a weekend made to remember the past and all its facets. I graduated in 1970, but recognize the fashion and hair styles of the 80's. My high school pics were the era of Laugh In and those white go-go boots.
What a sweet trip down memory lane! My brother graduated in 1980 and my husband in 1981. I graduated 6 years later and it seems such a difference those few years made. High school was so superficial and image conscious when I went, while your classes seemed so much more casual and friendly - so much more the way it should have been. I sometimes think I was born too late. :)
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